


Kiwi Experience

by Evandar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Lucius Malfoy's Midlife Crisis, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-24 18:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4929718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/pseuds/Evandar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucius is well aware that he is not the usual sort of person who packs up their essential belongings and escapes to New Zealand to find themselves, but here he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiwi Experience

**Author's Note:**

> I had so much fun writing this, so I really hope you enjoy it! The title is the name of a real life adventure bus tour, which does go to the places mentioned. Thanks go to my usual beta.

Lucius is well aware that he is not the usual sort of person who packs up their essential belongings and escapes to New Zealand to find themselves, but here he is.

His weariness is bone-deep, and the chill air of the Muggle - _Muggle!_ \- aeroplane has sunk deep beneath his skin, but the woman at the customs booth doesn’t so much as glance at his Dark Mark (on show, thanks to his short-sleeved shirt; a necessary evil as, when he leaves, it will be the height of a December summer) and the anonymity is refreshing.

“Welcome to New Zealand, Mr Malfoy,” she says after a while. His passport is stamped and slid back over the counter with an accompanying smile that looks as exhausted as Lucius feels.

“Thank you,” he says.

 

…

 

Auckland, he soon learns, is a massive, sprawling city that – geographically – makes very little sense. It’s made up of suburbs that have melted into one another to create a monstrosity that’s nigh on impossible to navigate, particularly by public transport.

But he finds his hotel with relative ease, and he collapses face-down onto a soft and springy bed. The tension in his back and shoulders eases, and he finds himself laughing uncontrollably into the starched sheets.

He’s free. Free from prying eyes and universal disapproval. Free from his past.

Free, even, from the indentation on his ring finger where his wedding ring used to be; for the first time in two years, he doesn’t feel its absence.

 

…

 

He travels north first. He follows the road up to the tip of the North Island, alternately Apparating and hiking. He sleeps rough in a modest tent that only has one bathroom and no peacocks, and cooks food from cans over a simple camp stove.

His skin darkens with the sun. His hair lightens. He thinks, when he reaches Paihia, that he should perhaps send a postcard to Draco.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he books into a small hostel and stows his meagre possessions in an under-bed locker that he _padlocks_ shut instead of hexes, and he takes a Muggle dolphin-watching tour. There are no dolphins. He leans over the side of the boat as it navigates through the Bay of Islands, and watches as a pod of Orca swim alongside it.

 _“They’ve scared the dolphins away,”_ the captain explains over the metallic, Muggle imitation of the _sonorous_ charm, _“but these Orca are a rarer sight.”_

 

…

 

He travels south again. Apparates straight to Auckland from Paihia and, for a moment, regrets it. It feels like cheating.

He books himself into an obscenely expensive hotel – more expensive, even, than the first he stayed in – and ignores the wrinkled nose of the receptionist as she takes in his appearance. His clothes are stained and his chin is covered in stubble, and not a soul he knew in England would recognise him.

It’s refreshing.

But that doesn’t mean he’s not still Lucius Malfoy. He cuts a far different figure on his way out of the hotel two hours later. Clean and shaven, with his hair in a neat tail at the base of his neck and dressed in a Muggle suit, he’s almost the person he used to be.

He dines alone, in a restaurant on top of the Sky Tower – one that rotates and offers a panoramic view of the baffling city below and its harbour filled with yachts. He sips the local sauvignon blanc and samples lobster and, alone and thus unable to care about the slip in etiquette, plans out the next stage of his journey on a map.

There’s a lot more of New Zealand to see. He’s looking forward to it.

 

…

 

He is, perhaps, hyper-aware of his age as he stands at the bus stop the next morning, surrounded by Muggles the same age as his son and their backpacks. His own rucksack looks tiny in comparison to the monstrosities these teenagers are carrying, but, he supposes, they don’t have the privilege of infinite expansion charms.

When the bus arrives – a truly atrocious shade of green – he hands his ticket to the driver (and Merlin save him, he’s older than _him_ too!) and throws his backpack into the overhead storage. He turns to face the window, watches his new travel companions board, and wonders if he hasn’t just made a terrible mistake.

He touches the faded skull of the Dark Mark on his arm and grimaces. Even if he _has_ , it will be far from the worst.

 

…

 

He manages to remain aloof until Waitomo. After that, there’s no way to pretend to a group of people that he’s anything other than human; that he’s one of them. (Almost.) Not when that group of people has seen him in a wet suit, throwing himself backwards off a dock with his arse poking through a ring of inflated rubber.

The humiliation of _that_ is a worthy payment for the sight of constellations of glow worms hanging above his head as he – part of a chain of floating Muggles – drifts through caves on an underground river. It’s more magical than anything he’s ever been able to do with a wave of his wand.

He and the Muggles bond afterwards. Over hot soup and coffee, and some fresh, buttered rolls. They dub him Luc and pronounce his Dark Mark “metal” (whatever that means) and while a mere two years ago he would have murdered them for their nerve, he simply smiles at them now instead.

 

…

 

Rotorua reeks of sulphur, but at the Maori culture show he learns that food cooked underground is remarkably delicious. (Made better by being the first taste of fresh vegetables he’s had in some time.)

Taupo is spectacular. Made more so by one of the Muggle boys – a lad named Daniel, who reminds Lucius oddly of Draco despite having little in common with him – talking him into going skydiving. Daniel, he learns, loves flying, but didn’t want to go alone, and by this point on the tour, Lucius is one of the only ones without some kind of hideous Muggle virus.

He thinks, on his way up in the tiny little plane, that he’s not going to live long enough to regret this. He’s a competent flier – nowhere near Draco’s ability, but he’d been a passable Chaser in his day – but this is different. This is his life depending on Muggle technology because of the whims of a boy he barely knows.

(Daniel is from Sussex, is the youngest of three, and misses his mum and dad. He has a lisp that he’s tried, and failed, to entirely get rid of. He likes planes. That is all.)

There’s a moment of blinding panic when Lucius finally tumbles out of the plane, and if it weren’t for the Muggle strapped to his back (one of the lunatics who does this for a profession) then he might have done something stupid and tried to Apparate closer to the ground. He doesn’t. And he’s rewarded instead with the world spread out beneath him – the curvature of the earth just visible as he hurtles down through the air towards the lake.

 _The world_ , he writes on a postcard later, _looked like an oil painting._

He doesn’t send it.

 

…

 

He goes drinking in Wellington. _Everyone_ goes drinking in Wellington.

Watching his younger travel companions get completely wasted loses its appeal after a while. Lucius has never been one for getting plastered and waking up with a stranger and possibly a disease the next day, and he’s not as young as he used to be. He’ll actually need to sleep before catching the ferry to the South Island in the morning, and after his third glass of wine he stands and leaves.

The warm night air is a gentle caress on his skin. His ears are ringing from the ‘music’ in the bar, and his blood is singing in his veins.

He peers up at the stars, barely visible between the buildings and the light pollution, and thinks that he might actually be happy.

It’s a strange thought.

It’s a thought that comes crashing down to ruin when he turns onto the street where his hostel is, and runs straight into the last person on earth he ever wanted to see again.

Harry Potter.

He recognises him in an instant. Even through the initial jumble of confusion, he recognises Potter’s voice. The voice that defended him, grudgingly, in court – Narcissa’s doing, he doesn’t doubt. His suspicions are confirmed when, righted and no longer at risk of landing on his arse on the street, he glimpses the tail-end of that famous scar peeking out from under Potter’s shaggy fringe.

The hair is different – longer; the boy’s skin no longer looks like he’s spent a lifetime being kept in a cupboard; the glasses are different. But it’s very, very definitely, Harry Potter.

Harry Potter. In Wellington. In the street, with his hand still on Lucius’ arm, staring up at him in disbelief.

“Mr Malfoy! What – what are you doing here?”

Lucius looks at him. Really looks. And feels – Merlin, but he hasn’t felt another wizard’s magic in so long, and Potter’s is right _there_ under his skin.

“Much the same as yourself, I expect,” he says. “Escaping. _Living_.”

Potter’s expression clears. His brows smooth out and his lips quirk up. “Ah,” he says.

He understands.

 

…

 

He’s on Lucius’ bus the next day. He’s there with his baffled expression as ‘Luc’ is greeted with warmth. He’s there with his warm thigh pressed against Lucius’ own as he drops into the seat next to him, and flashes a playful grin that – insanely – reminds Lucius faintly of Black.

He’s there on the ferry and there, later, on the hike to the very centre of New Zealand – just outside of Nelson.

“It’s good to see a friendly face,” he says, when Lucius eventually snaps and confronts him. “And you are friendly now, right?”

“Mr Potter, I tried to kill you. Several times.”

He’d be amazed if some of those attempts hadn’t killed off Potter’s remaining brain cells instead.

“And failed. Every time,” Potter reminds him. “I, sorry, but I really don’t care. As long as you’re not going to try and kill me now.”

It’s tempting. So very, _very_ tempting for one, awful moment. But Lucius unclenches his teeth and straightens his shoulders. “Hardly,” he drawls.

He likes to think that he’s a better person now than he used to be. A different one, certainly; different enough that he might, one day, almost be considered good.

 

…

 

He’s good enough to lend Potter a hair tie when the boy’s eventually, halfway into a trek through the national park, gives up the ghost and snaps.

He’s good enough to resist the brilliant smile that Potter flashes in his direction, even though it sends heat spiralling into his lower gut.

 

…

 

Potter becomes Harry somewhere between Westport and the Franz Josef Glacier. Harry starts calling him Luc partway _up_ the glacier, and while it’s _extremely_ tempting to just shove the brat into a crevasse, Lucius knows when he’s lost a battle.

 _I understand, now, your obsession and your futile hatred of Harry Potter_ , he writes on yet another postcard to Draco that will never be sent. _He’s horrifyingly delightful. I’m tempted in equal measure to either murder him, or to make him your stepfather._

 

…

 

Harry talks him into the Nevis Bungy, just outside of Queenstown. Lucius insists that they jump together – if the rope snaps, then he wants to take Potter down with him – and he immediately regrets it.

Strapped in, facing Harry Potter and his ridiculous green eyes and his stupid hair; literally harnessed to the wild brat with his pulsing magic and his wicked smile, Lucius is aware that this is hardly the best idea he’s ever had.

Not his _worst_. That idea is stamped on his arm forever. But this? This is up there. Definitely up there.

They jump, together, on the count of three as it’s shouted by the bungy supervisor. The freefall is heartstopping. The world whizzes past, and by the time they reach the first bounce, Lucius is both breathless and laughing, and clutching at Harry’s shirt with an iron grasp.

They have their first kiss, dangling upside down above a canyon.

Lucius thinks, as he buys the photograph later, that being able to say later that they started _this_ way, will explain everything that anyone could ever, possibly, need to know. Ever. And that, should he ever decide to send anything to his son ever again (and he might, one day, despite Draco’s request not to), this photo will be a part of it.

 

…

 

The lake in Queenstown has a tide. It rises and falls to the heartbeat – so the local Maori believed – of a giant. It rises and falls over Lucius’ toes as he sprawls in the sand with Harry half beneath him, eager and willing and arching up into his every touch.

It’s night. They’re not _quite_ alone out here, but the other couples are all too busy to bother looking at _them_. The remains of an earlier picnic of burgers and beer are strewn next to them.

Lucius has never had sex on a beach before. He rather thinks he’s too old to start now. But he’s sure, as Harry’s hand slips between their bodies, that Harry could probably convince him otherwise.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Leave a comment for the author here or on [Livejournal](http://hp-darkages.livejournal.com/16178.html).
> 
> Follow the 2015 Lucius/Harry Halloween Fest for more.


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